HalfBloods At School
by Morwen Tindomerel
Summary: Percy's year at Yancy's was a lot harder on his satyr protector than he knows
1. We Find Trouble

Yancey Academy is an expensive private school on the Hudson for 'troubled students'. Me, I'm more trouble than troubled, ditto for my friends Callie and Poly. You see we're demigods – yeah, like in Greek mythology. You see the gods are real, they still exist and they still like to fraternize with morals.

I'm a son of Ares, the god of war which means I'm a _real_ good fighter. I can also mess with people's heads, make 'em scared, make 'em brave, whatever. Callie is a daughter of Aphrodite, not only is she incredibly beautiful but she has the power of Love – which is nowhere _near_ as lame as you'd think. And then there's Polypoetes Stone, who had the bad luck to have a mom who knew her ancient Greek. His weird first name means 'maker of many things' and it suits him to a T being a son of Hephaestus the smith god. You wouldn't believe what he can do with machinery, _any_ kind of machinery. He's also sneaky, very sneaky and smarter than either Callie or me. We're a team; Poly is the brains, I'm the brawn and Callie's the beauty – which is much more important than it sounds.

We've been going to Yancy for a couple of years now which is a little on the risky side – three strong demigods together – but we can handle ourselves a bit better than most and the Camp always sent a satyr protector to help us spot the monsters. Okay, more explanations try to keep up: 'camp' is Camp Half-Blood a place set up to train young demigods so they won't be offed by the monsters they attract, the stronger you are the more monsters. What kind of monster you may ask? Oh the standard; Cyclops, sphinxes, hydras… Basically if it's in the _Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology_ it's real and it wants to eat you.

Last year our protector was Gleeson Hedges, tough as nails but maybe a little over aggressive – and remember it's a son of Ares saying that! Besides I hate being called cupcake. We knew we were getting somebody new but still we were pretty darn surprised when we ran into him on our way into eighth grade orientation.

"Grover?" Callie said suddenly. The kid in front of us turned and yep, it was. Grover is young for a satyr, kind of undersized and he pretty much lost his nerve after an extraction that went horribly wrong five years ago. The Council of Cloven Elders that bosses the satyrs blamed Grover for the mess but they were the only ones. Heck, even _Gleeson_ said he'd done good to get two of his three charges to safety – and it had been Thalia's own decision to play rear guard. A gutsy girl - I'd have liked her – and she wasn't exactly dead though being turned into a tree isn't anybody's idea of living.

We found seats together at the back where we could talk. "You got a new assignment congratulations, Grover," said Callie

"Yeah, way to go, man," said Poly.

"We're an easy gig," I told him. "Just sniff out the monsters then stand aside and we'll take 'em."

"Not that we get a lot of monsters here," Poly put in, giving me a dirty look. "What was it last year, just a couple of lost Laistrygonians and some boar."

I was about to remind him of the Cyclops but remembered just in time that that was the last thing Grover needed to hear. "Yeah, and we had to practically go looking for 'em," I said instead.

"Maybe you looked," said Callie.

Grover in the meantime was looking worried and depressed, like he always did these days. "This is my last chance," he said, "I mess up this time and it's all over."

"You won't," Poly told him.

"There were three half-bloods last time," he said miserably.

"Yeah, untrained," I pointed out – though pretty badass for all that. "And one was only seven years old, totally different from us."

"Totally," Poly agreed.

"Grover," Callie said taking his hand and he blushed as guys always do when she uses that voice. "You are a good satyr and an excellent protector. You had the Fates themselves against you with Thalia. Nobody could have brought her in."

But the goat-boy wouldn't be cheered up – and resisting Callie's ego boosting isn't easy. "I'm such a coward."

"No," I said flatly, "you're not. He looked across Callie at me in surprise and I flashed him my scary grin. He paled a little. "I'm a son of Ares," I reminded him. "I hate cowards." Then I switched the grin to friendly. "And I like you, Grover-boy, ergo you're no coward."

…

"We gotta make Grover look good," Poly said.

It was after dinner on our first day and we were sitting together on the porch of Birch House where the seventh and eighth graders sleep.

"We can do that best by staying out of trouble this year," Callie said firmly.

Poly and I exchanged looks. "Trouble usually comes looking for us," I reminded her.

"Not always," she gave me a stern look. "Certain of us go looking for it," Guilty as charged your honor! I shrugged apologetically. Hey, I get bored, okay? She switched the look to Poly, "And some of us make trouble with their cunning plans!" Poly winced, ouch. Yeah, that was true too. "No fooling around this year, guys," she finished. "Promise me."

"On the River Styx," Poly and I chorused.

…..

The very next day Grover found trouble all by himself, so much for good intentions. He followed us out of Algebra grabbing Poly by the arm. "I've found a half-blood!"

We all stared at him. "You're kidding," I said, then wished I hadn't. It obviously was no kid, Grover's yellow eyes were round the pupils gone slitty with shock.

"Who and where?" Poly asked, getting right to the point.

Grover was shaking, Callie put an arm around him as I steered us all out of the traffic and into a window bay.

"I don't know his name," Grover said. "He's one of the new sixth graders I just got a whiff of him in the hall. He's strong, very, very strong."

And that wasn't good. Like I said before the stronger you are the more monsters you attract and when you're a little kid who doesn't even know what you are yet that is very, very dangerous.

"Show us," said Callie.

Luckily it was time for morning break so that wasn't a problem. Since it was a nice warm September day everybody was out back on the lawn. "There." Grover pointed at a scrawny, black haired kid on a bench away from the others hunched over an open book.

"You sure?" Poly asked. Reading is not a favorite pastime of most half-bloods because of our dyslexia.

Suddenly the kid snapped the book shut, slammed it down on the bench and took off running across the lawn.

"Okay," I said, "that's more like it."

Grover kept a worried eye fixed on the kid, breathing a sigh of relief when he reached the playground and attacked the jungle gym.

"You're going to have to change grades, Grover," Callie said. "You won't be able to keep close to him as an eighth grader."

"Right," Poly agreed. "I mean we don't even sleep in the same building much less take classes with the little kids. Callie'll take care of it."

Callie's real good at manipulating the mist. She can pretty much make mortals believe whatever she wants them too – which believe you me comes in handy when you've just slain a hydra in the cafeteria right in front of the whole school!

"I can fix people's minds," Callie said, "but you're going to have to hack into the school computer and fix the records, Poly, and to do that we need the kid's name."

"Your wish is my command," I said, and headed off to the playground before anybody could stop me. They would have too I've never met anybody more for making simple things complicated than my two buddies.

"Hey, kid!" I called, "Yeah, you on the slide!" He stood up fists balled at his sides, eyes narrowed you could see he was a real scapper, full to the brim with attitude. I warmed to the kid and stuck out a hand, "Mark Service."

He blinked, pretty taken aback. I guess I look more like a bully than the welcome wagon at that. "Uh - Percy Jackson."

We shook. "Welcome to Yancy," I said, "It's better than Juvie but not by much."

Percy grimaced. "I won't be here long. I've never spent more than a year at a school in my life."

Oh yeah, definitely a half-blood. I shrugged, "Well they've stood me for two years," in spite of the hydra, and the Cyclops and don't even mention the flock of griffins, "Maybe you'll get lucky too."

"Er, thanks."

The bell rang end of period and I headed back to the others, little guessing I'd just shaken hands with the premier hero of the age.

…..

That night Callie helped Grover move into Percy's dorm room, luckily there was an empty bed there which saved them a lot of juggling around. And Poly and I broke into the principal's office so he could hack the computer. Guess who got the job of altering all Grover's paperwork to say sixth grade instead of eighth. Oddly enough everything went smooth as silk - which is no common occurrence for us let me tell you! The next morning the whole school from Principal Whitman down was completely convinced that Grover was, and always had been, a sixth grade student assigned to Dorm 5 on the main house's third floor. It was our first and last piece of luck where Percy Jackson was concerned.


	2. We Break Into the Principal's Office

Our new little half-blood was definitely a troubled kid. Within the first week he'd hit bottom of every class and had been in detention twice. Whitman would have made it in-house suspension or even expulsion if he'd know about the candy store Percy was running out of his dorm room but we weren't worried, no student was going to tattle and close down the one source of unhealthy goodies on campus! No question Percy had attitude to burn but he wasn't mean with it. He had no problem hanging out with a dweeby character like Grover (sorry, goat-boy but you are a dweeb). In fact by lights out of Grover's first day as a sixth grader Percy had gotten into three fights with kids who tried to bully our protector and informed the sixth grade study hall that Grover was his best friend – which got both of them detention, oh well at least it was another chance to bond.

Since getting time alone was a problem - Percy stuck to Grover like glue - goat-boy sent a message to camp by squirrel post instead of Iris messaging. Chiron promptly sent back orders to find out all we could about Percy's background which was how Poly, Callie and I came to be breaking into the principal's office – again.

"Honestly, I think we spend more time in here than Whitman does," Poly muttered tapping away on the principal's keyboard.

"I think you're right," Callie pulled a thick file out of the 'J' drawer and took it over to the desk.

I was keeping watch through a crack in the door more on general principles than any real expectation of trouble, like Poly'd said we did this _all_ the time. But you know how it is, let yourself get careless once and you're caught. I think Murphy must have been a half-blood.

The principal's office is a big paneled room with glass fronted bookcases and massive, heavily carved furniture. Grim doesn't even begin to describe it. The cast bronze Ares and Aphrodite in the corner should've made me feel right at home but the marble sphinxes supporting the mantelpiece kept me on edge, I've met one too many of the real thing. Let's just say that being a half-blood gives you real mixed feelings about classical decoration.

"Twelve different schools in twelve years, oh dear," said Callie.

Poly laughed, "Congrates, Mark, we've finally found a kid with a worse record than you."

"I wasn't always thrown out," I reminded him with a quick look over my shoulder, "Mom's in the army, we moved a lot when I was a kid."

"His mother's name is Sally Jackson," Callie read, "social 992-96-8731."

Poly's fingers flew over the board. "Got her," he announced after a bit. "Hmmm…married to a Gabe Ugliano but uses her maiden name –"

"Can you blame her?" I asked.

"Nope," he answered. "Percy's definitely not Ugliano's kid he was seven when they got married. Ummmm…birth certificate says 'father unknown'. "

"Big surprise," I said. My birth certificate says the same thing.

Suddenly Poly burst out laughing. "Shhhhh!" Callie and I hissed.

"Sorry," he choked, "it's just the poor kid's full name is 'Perseus'."

It didn't sound like a laughing matter to me. "And I thought 'Percy' was bad! No wonder he's a scrapper."

"Diagnosed as ADHD and dyslexic," Callie said, shuffling papers. "No surprises there. Straight D- student..." She frowned. "All these expensive boarding schools but nobody ever seems to have made much effort to help him."

"What I'd like to know is how his mom's affording them on her salary," said Poly. "She works at a candy store for gods' sake."

"Maybe she's getting help from Percy's dad?" I suggested taking my eyes off the empty main hall for another brief glance behind me.

The keyboard rattled. "Looks like you got something there, Mark," Poly said at last. "It seems our Percy's got a trust fund that pays for his education, in his name and no clue where the money came from."

"Olympian gold probably," I said.

"His dad's trying to take care of him," Cally agreed.

Sometimes it seems like the gods don't care, they just have their little fling with our mortal mom or dad and disappear back to Olympus. Well that is pretty much what happens but it's not like they can get married and settled down is it? The gods have rules and there are pretty strict limits on how much they can do even for their own kids. A lot of half-bloods have problems with that, they just can't get their heads around the fact the gods are _different_. Expecting them to act like mortal parents is setting yourself up for grief. Whoever Percy's dad was he was stretching the rules about as far as they could go with that trust fund, which pretty much proved just how much he must care given the grief he'd catch if he was found out.

"Probably Apollo," I said. The sun god is famous for pushing the envelope when it comes to looking out for his kids.

"Black hair," Poly said briefly from the computer.

"They don't have to be blonds do they?" I countered.

"Ever seen one who wasn't?" he asked.

"The original Perseus was a son of Zeus," Callie said out of the blue.

I looked back at her. She was frowning down at the closed folder on the desk. Poly had stopped typing and was staring too. "Oh gods," he said with real fervor, "not again!"

"We know Zeus' got the self control of a horny mink," I said. Maybe the distant thunder was just my imagination but I added a quick, "No disrespect intended," just in case!

Poly remembered what he was supposed to be doing, finished emailing the info to Chiron and started to shut down all the windows he'd opened. "Percy's got tons of attitude maybe he's your brother, Mark."

"Wouldn't mind if he was," I answered promptly, "but I don't think so. He's a little undersized for a son of Ares, besides my dad isn't really into education."

"Hermes maybe," said Callie, closing the file cabinet drawer. "His kids tend to the light and fast."

"Not tricky enough," Poly argued, "how about Dionysus?" He switched off the computer. "I mean here he is, stuck on earth…"

I rolled my eyes. "Poor kid!" then took a final squint through the cracked door into the dimly lit front hall to make sure the coast was clear.

Poly and Callie came up behind me ready to leave. "Castor says that Mr. D is really very nice to him and Pollux when no one is looking," she commented.

"Yeah, but still…okay let's head out."

…..

The next morning we had a new Latin teacher or should I say a very, very old one. Poly stopped in the classroom door so suddenly I walked right into him. "What's the matter with you, smart boy?"

He grabbed my arm and dragged me to our usual seats in the back. "You got eyes don't you?"

I do and at that moment I was having trouble believing what they were telling me. Chiron was sitting at the head of the room next to the teacher's desk. Yes Chiron is a centaur and yes I said sitting. You see he's got this wheelchair, a sort of magic box on wheels that is much bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Big enough for him to fit his horse half into it with fake legs in front so he can pass for a handicapped human. Other than that he looked about as usual. Chiron always dresses his human half like a wimpy school teacher but the bow-tie was seriously egregious.

"Good morning," he said when everybody'd finally shuffled to their seats. "I regret to say that Mr. Van Kamp has been forced to take some time off due to a sudden family emergency. I will be your teacher for the rest of the year. My name is Mr. Brunner."

Of course the minute class was over Poly, Callie and I made a beeline for the front of the room. "What are you doing here?" Poly demanded with a quick look over shoulder to make sure nobody was within ear shot.

"I came to have a look at our new half-blood," Chiron answered as calmly as if he made house calls every day instead of practically never leaving camp.

"You think Zeus fell off the wagon again and Percy's the result," Poly said flatly.

"I think the boy's situation is far more precarious than usual," Chiron answered, looking a little annoyed. "There are some very worrying things in his personal history."

"Monsters," I said.

"Well, yes," Chiron admitted. "We don't want another Luke now do we?"

…

"Another Thalia is what he means," Poly said flatly. "Chiron thinks our Perseus is Zeus' just like the first one."

We were back in the principal's office. Yes three times in one week was pretty excessive, and in my opinion we were seriously pressing our luck but we had to fix the paperwork for 'Mr. Brunner' Poly was on the computer as usual and Callie at the desk filling out forms and guess who had his eye glued to the door crack as always?

"Then he's wrong," Callie said, pen scratching. "Have you noticed Percy's eyes?"

"No," said Poly, "and you shouldn't either – the kid's twelve!"

"Don't be stupid, Pol," Callie answered. "Zeus' kids have blue eyes, Percy's are green, sea green."

I looked over my shoulder at her. "Poseidon?"

"Some sea god anyway, could be Triton I guess or Proteus or even Nereus."

"Or Poseidon," Poly said gloomily. "I mean Zeus slipped, why not the Earthshaker?"

I knew our luck was bound run out sometime, unfortunately it was this time. Light fanned out over the checked marble floor of the front hall as the door to the back stairs opened. I hastily and gently shut the heavy oak office door and locked it from inside. "You guys finished yet?"

"NO!" they both hissed emphatically.

I put an ear to the door, hoping that whoever it was would pass by. Of course they didn't. I heard a key slide into the lock and grabbed the big crystal knob to keep it from turning. "Well hurry!"

Whitman, it had to be Whitman, stopped fiddling with the lock after a few minutes but my guess was he'd gone to wake up our custodian/handyman. "We got to get out of here now," I announced.

"I haven't finished the forms," Callie protested, looking rattled.

"Take 'em with you," Poly ordered, throwing open the window and starting to unscrew the screen. "We can sneak them in another night."

"Oh gods," I said, and it was a genuine prayer. "I'm sick of breaking into this place!"

"Not now, Mark!" Poly lowered the screen to the ground outside and stepped back to let Callie out first. He and I followed and I, being the tallest, lifted the screen back into place but of course I couldn't replace the screws from outside.

"This'll fall out the first time Whitman opens his window," I muttered.

"Which means we're safe," Poly whispered back. "Whitman never opens his window!"

The lights went on in the office overhead. "Come on," Callie hissed, clutching a handful of paper, "let's get out of here!"

We circled through the decorative shrubbery towards Birch House and thanks to our training at Camp Half-Blood we were a lot more silent than your average mouse, not that it did us any good. All of a sudden something erupted out of the bushes in front of me with a harsh scream and wild whir of wings. A huge beak missed me by inches as I dove to one side yelling; "Hades and Styx, not another griffon!"

Shrubbery rustled as Poly and Callie split up and spread out. I rolled to my feet, drawing my sword. Yes I had my sword with me. There's a word for half-bloods who go out at night unarmed – dead. I heard the click of Poly's lighter and a jet of green Greek Fire lit up the area showing not a griffon but an eagle about ten feet high from talon to beak, with a vast spread of glistening bronze colored wings. I reoriented myself fast and, as the monster eagle stretched its neck towards Poly and his lighter I shoved my blade into its exposed throat where-upon the thing vanished with a flash of light, a clap of thunder and a strong smell of ozone leaving us standing there, staring blankly at each other with weapons clutched in our hands as the sky opened and rain poured down.


End file.
